T learn that Hitler will invade us in a few] days; that he will not invade us till May; that hho will first crush us in Libya; that he will not, invade us till he has all the Balkans in his grip; that he will first seize all the Irish ports,' and intensify the U-boat campaign; that'he will do nothing until American supplies are well on the way and then he will torpedo the lot. So now you know exactly what is going to happen.
Stockholm is rather coming into favour again as a source of news "from well-informed neutrals just returned from Germany." Tt lost caste afer the: first few months of the war. Latterly Belgrade has been very prolific, but now when we see anything dated Belgrade, we pass it by. Lisbon keeps up a steady stream mostly from France, but any two papers seem able to interpret it in exactly opposite ways. Probably Moscow is the best, at least it reads Recently we were treated to a marvellous) hair-raiser via New York of 18,000 German planes standing at the ready to transport 250,000 troops to England, and a total German air force of 70,000, Our air authorities smile gently. If that were true, Germany must have had at least half that number six months ago; and why then, the RAF, being vastly weaker than it is now, did she allow our men to defeat her efforts to destroy the British Army at Dunkirk and to knock the Luftwaffe out of the sky in September?
We Know quite well that the Germans have assembled a large number of barges in the Channel ports; and in a careful survey of that there are probably 60 German divisions—anything from 900,000 to 1,200,000 men—assembled in northern France and Belgium ready for an invasion. But neutral reports of the sort quoted above bear the obvious stamp of the Nazis' familiar war of nerves. No doubt a tremendous test les ahead of us, probably as soon as the weather becomes decent. But our own output of guns, tanks and aeroplanes is far ahead of the best that had been expected' by this time Jast summer. And our people are not par ticularly prone to succumb to bogey-men tactics.
Seeing how genuinely popular Mr. Willkie was hero, it is pleasant to learn that Lord Halifax has made a very good impression in America. Of course the President gave him a splendid start by doing him the great honour of going to meet him in his yacht. And it was a stroke of genius to send him in our newest battleship, King George V, the sight of which immensely impressed the Americans, But after all this of course Lord Halifax had to crand on his own feet. Some Wore doubtful how he might get on with the reporters. But his simple friendly and open manner has pleased them greatly. He is said to be perfectly straightforward and frank towards questions he can answer, and to evade those he can't with a disarming deftness which is mot perceived to be an evasion till the reporter is out in the street. But after so many years in Parliament, and specially as Viceroy confronting Thdian Nationalists, to handle even. the hardest-Boiled American journalist ought to be a mere matter of routine.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.